


One Last Summer

by heliotropeheroic



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Childhood, F/M, Gen, Mentions of Death, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 08:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3603039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heliotropeheroic/pseuds/heliotropeheroic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do insects know that their lives will end when the summer does? Would they do anything differently even if they did? After all, much greater things will emerge the next spring from their bones and shells.</p><p>Armin looks back on the summer of 845.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Last Summer

The summer before we turned ten- what would turn out to be our last summer- Eren's parents signed him up for remedial schooling. The truth was, he desperately needed it, and it also gave the newest member of the Jaeger household time to adjust to life in town without Eren's questionable influence. I understood, of course. Understanding was just about all I did. But the prospect of a summer without my only friend and keeper still drained all the stagnant June heat right out of my bones. After all, it was a frustratingly big world and I was a small person. I counted the cobblestones splayed out in front of me and hoped that if I just kept my mouth shut and my eyes closed, I would tiptoe forward into September just fine.

\---

The first time I saw Mikasa I thought I'd seen a ghost. From my hiding place in a flower box, petals stuck like suckers in my freshly skinned knees, I spotted Mrs. Jaeger hand-in-hand with a dark-haired child across the market. My heart soared as I stood up and called out to Eren-- _my_ Eren-- across the street, no longer afraid of the older boys pursuing me. It soared, then sank like a stone when the child turned. It wasn't Eren, but a little girl as beautiful and unreachable as the porcelain dolls my grandfather kept high up on his tallest bookshelves, dusty and empty. Her eyes pierced through air, cloth, and meat like a great animal, searching for the source of the call. And then, with a gentle tug from Mrs. Jaeger, she was lost in the crowd. I shivered in the sweltering heat of the marketplace, because for the first time in as long as I could remember, I didn't understand. I wasn't even certain what it was I wasn't understanding. I was yanked from my floral bunker by fat, ruddy hands, and Eren did not come to save me. I wondered if he ever would again. 

\---

I want to say that it was an insatiable curiosity that made me knock on his door on that treacherously calm morning, but that would be a lie. Was he as lonely as me? Was school awful? Was he still the same boy he was before that cold night in May? When the hands that always held mine so tightly had snuffed out two lives?  
"Armin, Eren can't play right now, he has studying to do."  
No. It was fear that made me come here. It was always fear. Did he still want me? Had he replaced me? Was she everything I could never be? Was he happy? I stared up at Mrs. Jaeger, and I was as still and silent and stupid as the rest of the garden. She sighed.  
"Armin, why don't you play with Mikasa? She doesn't have any friends yet, and then you can _both_ let Eren study."  
Before I could protest or run away, Mrs. Jaeger was gone and the personification of all of my fears was left standing in front of me. I fumbled in the silence to try to say something groundbreaking, to try to defend myself, but I felt like a rabbit staring down a feral cat and all that came out was, "Why are you wearing Eren's winter scarf in July?"  
But my words seemed to hit home. She raised her hands that did not shake to tug at the garment and answered, in a voice that did not waver, "Because he- _it_ keeps me warm."  
And right then in that moment, I wasn't afraid of Mikasa anymore. Because I knew that she was the same as me- cold and a little bit afraid without him. I took her hand, and mine did not shake either.

\---

Mikasa's family came from far away outside of the walls, at least that's what she told me. The lazy July sun melted away over the town behind her, oozing in through her hair and the crackled boards that made up the tree house. Of the few things she'd managed to salvage from her old house, the most precious were her mother's books. I swallowed down the look and feel of painterly symbols on fragile paper, the dips and swoops of a dead language. I asked her if she could read them. She could not. She taught me what she remembered though, like how to count to ten or say "good morning", the sound of those words in my own mouth as alien and enchanting as the cicadas blinking to life around us. It made it all so real- more so than any book or painting. I could feel the outside world spilling across my tongue and seeping into my ears and sitting in front of me in a white linen dress. I understood everything again: We were going to go to the lands outside the wall. We were going to see all of it. And, if Eren didn't mind too much, she could come too.  
"...Hey, Mikasa. I actually have a book to show you too!"

\---

Until this point in my life, company had always meant noise. But with Mikasa, the silence was easy. We trekked up the big hill outside town together, wading through dry, crunchy grass and plucking up flowers as we went. The only sounds were the wind through the crackling weeds and the buzz of insects. When we reached the top, we sat and looked over our homes for a long while, never saying a word. Eren was my most precious friend, but there were some things he just didn't understand. There are some places that are better appreciated without words. As the sun began to sink and the crickets began to tune up, I laid out all of the flowers I'd picked for mom and dad and we set off toward home. I knew Mikasa understood. I prayed that Eren would never have to.

\---

Eyes closed. Mouth shut. Was that really so hard? The sickly sweet smell of the flower boxes was much less comforting when my face was being buried in the soil like a particularly big, stupid plant. A fleshy fist pulled my head up by my hair and I gasped for breath, dirt gritting between my teeth. Maybe, in retrospect, I shouldn't have called his mother a "shambling sow of the Military Police ". Maybe, when they'd gone to tattle to the soldiers by the gate, I shouldn't have yelled after them that when the walls fell down, they'd all pee themselves and be eaten while running off to tell a grownup. My head hit the corner of the flower box with a dull thud. Maybe I shouldn't leave the house without Eren at all.  
By the time my reeling brain registered that someone else had joined in the fight, it was already over, my attackers scurrying off down the street with their tails between their legs. My savior wiped her bloodied knuckles on her dress and leveled me stare that could break a grown man.  
"Mi…mikasa? Why did you help me?"  
"Because the strong should defend the weak, not prey on them." She replied curtly, and turned on her heels back toward home. Eren's words, not hers.  
"Then… why are you leaving me here?"  
"Because you started it. And you're stronger than them too, aren't you?"  
That, on the other hand, I had never heard before. And it would be years before I understood.

\---

We sat on the steps of the bell tower one afternoon and watched the Scouting Legion pass by across the dusty street. Their horses stamped proudly and they stared straight ahead like rigid toys on elaborate display, none daring to lock eyes with their tearful loved ones below.  
"Do you really admire them?" She asked me, gazing out over the crowd.  
More than anything I did. I wanted to be strong and selfless like that. I wanted to be a good person, like my parents. She looked like she wanted to tell me that I would end up exactly like my parents, but she said nothing, and the horses passed, and the crowd diffused around us. Just like that, those good people were gone, some for days, some forever. She asked me if I thought Eren was a good person, even after everything he'd done. We agreed that he was.  
I lied. She didn't. 

\---

September came, sharp and pale blue, and it swept my last summer away like old cobwebs in its wake. Eren galloped down his front steps and knocked me off my feet in a flurry of dry leaves and shouting and flailing limbs. I teased him about his arithmetic and he pulled my hair and it was almost as if the summer had never happened at all. Almost.  
"Armin, there's someone I want you to meet!" he beamed, dipping back into his house for only a moment before resurfacing like some sort of lake bird, dragging Mikasa in tow. I couldn't help but laugh even as his face screwed up in frustration and he demanded to know what was so funny.  
"Eren, people don't stop existing when you're not looking at them," Mikasa offered dryly.  
He still didn't get it, but his anger lacked any venom. We walked to the market to buy those messy little cakes he loved, the three of us hand-in-hand, and filled him in on everything he'd missed. Summer came and went, but I think in the end, I gained something warmer and far more tangible that year. And she was here to stay.

\---  



End file.
